sinking, feeling
by violent darlings
Summary: Nikola and Helen, on the final furlong of their search for King Tut's tomb mentioned in 3.16 Awakening. M, Nikola / Helen.


Nikola and Helen, on the final furlong of their search for King Tut's tomb.

My first foray into this awesome fandom, and I can't stop writing about it. My initiation into Sanctuary fic was Helen/Will but I watched 'The Five' last night and fell madly, passionately in love with Nikola Tesla. So this fic combines two of my loves, Helen/Nikola and second person POV.

**Disclaimer**: I'm in the habit of these things now. I don't own anything you recognise in the following collection of mad little words. Title taken from _Hide and Seek_ by Imogen Heap.

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><p><em><strong>sinking, feeling<strong>_

The two of you end up in Egypt, in the Valley of the Kings. Why not? Maybe you're trying to get as far away from home as possible. You don't know at the beginning how long it will take; it was always going to be a massive undertaking, and God knows neither of you pursue it full time. You have your Sanctuaries t consider, after all, and Nikola will not be parted from his work for any period longer than a handful of months at best. So you part, bound for your separate lives but coming back to one another to share in this mad treasure hunt, this race of champions. Tutankhamen is a prize and you long for it in a way you have not longed for anything in a very long time. As for Nikola, he believes the pharaoh had been a vampire and that solidifies his interest. And so you both keep coming back.

And for those months it is you and Nikola against the world, as it was at Oxford, before you knew John and James and Nigel and a painfully thin, shy man with a ridiculous moustache who became your friend. And at times the old familiarity rises up on you like a Nile flood breaking its banks and you are lost in the past. Nikola's occasional flicker of an accent is enough to take you back to those crowded Oxford rooms, the four men you came to care for so much and the one you'd loved above all. Your fiancé. A killer. Two opposing descriptions, and so began a long and tiring attempt at reconciling the two you neither knew how to complete nor given up on.

It takes a long time for the two of you to get weary of the search.

Nikola is nothing if not stubborn and you fancy yourself more than a little determined. Between the two of you you trade off on encouraging the other, on pushing and pulling them along. But five years is a long time even when you have forever and it begins to nag at you, more than anything Nikola's near constant company for months on end. It is an occasional thing, this sensation of weariness. Nikola, if he feels anything other than sarcasm and droll cynicism and his thrice-cursed pride, gives nothing away. And you? For the most part you are thoroughly in love with Egypt and with penetrating her secrets, one by one. You spent too long in the guise of a perfectly well behaved Victorian female, even if at times you were the very opposite. Here you have everything you need, sand between your toes and Nikola's drawling voice as he works beside you, hands steady even as he quips out his little poison darts with unflinching accuracy.

It is hard work, long work, unrewarding work. Combing through tiny bits of rubble and ancient pieces of papyrus, a thousand red herrings with only the occasional true lead seeded in every once in a while. Tutankhamen is here, you can feel it. Somewhere, it is here, underneath masses of rock and sand lies treasure and knowledge beyond all human imagination, and it thrills you to the core. Oh, you're here for the adventure and the thrill of the pursuit, but for Nikola it is personal, another clue to the history of the race he has taken to with such dedication sometimes you wonder if he has forgotten he was once human too. He no doubt has a hidden agenda, but as long as it doesn't affect you too much, you don't particularly care.

And so you are here, five years on. You have been in the south Americas for the past few months, tracking rare abnormals and glorying in the rainforest. Egypt in comparison is on the surface barren, but after a mere week back in the Valley of the Kings you are as in love with it as you ever were. Nikola, on the other hand, snarks about everything he can think of, from the heat to the food to the accommodations. Usually the two of you manage to find rooms somewhere, but this time you are reduced to a pair of tents. You don't mind at all; it lends something to the adventure of it and you rather enjoy going days without washing, trekking about the site in men's clothes. Really, you're having the time of your life. But Nikola? Perfectly coiffed, perfectly dressed, perfectly sarcastic Nikola? Not so much.

He treats you with his usual brand of snarky sexuality, as though one day he will make one final wisecrack and you will leap into his arms. And no, of course not, except you might because aside from his sarcasm and his (obvious) little problem with fangs and claws, he really is charming. Sometimes you find yourself wondering what he feels for you, which brings you back to contemplating if he feels anything beyond the arrogance that rolls off of him in poisonous waves. At Oxford, he had not been so proud. The first time his claws erupted from his fingers and his teeth lengthened into fangs, he had been embarrassed, almost ashamed of his lapse in control. Then there were very few outward signs of any of your powers, other than your own unchanging appearance and Nigel's ability to disappear at will. He had been a become a savage creature in a comfortable sitting room of scholars, standing before the fireplace and growling in the distorted voice you would come to know so well. The others had been shocked, even John, but you had not been.

You had been exhilarated.

You wonder where his accent went. You remember it like it was yesterday, thickening his words with an Eastern European tang that always left you a little bit dizzy. He had sounded like an adventure and even there you had hungered for it. Now his voice is more cultured and bland, but there is still that little lurk of his accent around his words.

One night you return to the campsite to discover your tent as nothing more than a puddle of material on the ground. "Damn it!" you curse. You don't need this now. You're tired and sore and you just want to crawl into bed. You feel Nikola's presence behind you, don't need to look at him to see his arms crossed over his chest and his lips curled up in a sneer. You look around at him in pure exasperation.

"Problems, Helen?" he drawls, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

"Bloody - damn - tent," is all you can manage in reply, but it gets your point across well enough as you hear him laugh softly to himself.

"You try it!" you snap furiously, stepping back and waving your hands at the ridiculous bloody thing. Nikola smirks, stepping in front of you and bending down to the ground. It is your turn to watch with amusement as your engineer, your inventor, is unable to make sense of a silly little tent.

"Useless thing," he huffs in exasperation.

You look around furtively and then wonder why you're doing it. This is the beauty and the thrill of being out here: there is utterly no one to see you and for the first time in what feels like an age you don't have to worry about what anyone thinks of you. The native workmen already think little of you for being a woman working in a man's field; it doesn't concern you. And so you crawl into the same tent as Nikola without a thought; you have seen him gasping and shaking in the wake of the Source blood creeping underneath his skin, and he has seen you similarly affected. Sharing a tent is nothing in the wake of such intimacy as having the same blood rushing through your veins. It doesn't stop you though from shoving him to the opposite side of the tiny tent, settling down your sleeping bag and feeling the odd rock dig into your back. "You stay on your side of the tent and I'll stay on mine," you warn.

He smirks.

Any other time you wouldn't let him get away with it, but you just want to sleep.

In contrast to what you would have thought, your cohabitation with Nikola is simple and easy, rather like living with a brother but for the way he looks at you at times, the way his hand sometimes finds yours to twine fingers tight, and of course his constant flirting. You know enough about psychology to know it is an elaborate defence mechanism, and enough about Nikola to know that mentioning it as such would be enough to close him off forever.

He thinks he's so difficult to read. If only he knew.

The nights get colder and you're grateful for the presence of another person in the tent. It is the desert, after all; the nights get cold. Tesla seems to sleep more now than he usually does, perhaps due to the intense labour that goes on during the day. You're not sure. Either that or he is faking, and that opens up a whole other avenue of analysis and it makes your head hurt, a little. (It could just be the glare from the sand.)

Until one night and in the scant light you snap awake as though someone has poured water on you. He is quick but you are quicker; you see the glint of his eyes watching you in the dark, the way they flicker close and his lip curls at a corner. He's been faking.

Well. You are not one to take a challenge lying down, and so resolutely you scoot across the floor to him. His body is colder than the average human's, but not as much as the temperature outside the tent; you nestle close to his side and drape his arm over you.

You can tell by his breathing that he is awake and he knows, but he doesn't move or speak. You don't understand this night-time Nikola, who when devoid of his quips and his needling jests is merely a man. Perhaps for all of his talk about being extraordinary, sometimes he needs to pretend to be normal too. You can't know. In the dark and silence he seems a porcupine without quills, a fragment of himself that he does not reveal during the day. Yet you can't help but enjoy it, just a little.

And you can't help but sleep.

You wake with the sunlight shining through the fabric of the tent and Nikola's morning erection pressed firmly against your backside. He's awake, you can tell, and you slip from his arms and out the tent without looking at him. It is too much and not enough, waking in his arms with his need against you, and knowing it is a fact of male biology doesn't change the way your bones hum a little at the thought of him wanting you.

He appears a decent amount of time later, dressed as best he can out here with his hair slicked back. It will get mussed one way or another during the day, but it amuses you how he faithfully tidies it every morning. You like the way he can't look you quite in the eye, the way his hand shakes a little as he passes you a brush, a thousand little details painting together a picture you don't know if you want to see. You learned observation from James, after all.

If you glance at all at his crotch in helpless remembrance during the day, you certainly don't admit it, least of all to yourself. You are a grown woman and it is not as though you have not known the love of a man. Nikola, though, is no mere man. You remember John, being the sole focus of that cool intensity, the way he worshipped your body with his hands and lips and teeth. But Nikola is all raw passion and electrifying (no pun intended) enthusiasm, and you can't imagine what it would be like to be the centre of all that mad and wonderful attention, that brilliant mind zeroed in solely on you.

It stops your heart in your chest, a little. It's also terrifying.

That night you wait until he is pretending to be asleep again and you creep over the space between you to him. This time he is lying on his back and so you pillow your head on his (bony but still reasonably comfortable) chest, and listen to his heartbeat pick up double time. You stretch an arm over his chest, lulled to sleep by the comforting thud underneath your ear.

And so it goes on, a stalemate, a battle of equals against one another, over and over. You do not touch him and he goes from madly flirtatious to silent and withdrawn back to flirtatious again. It is though he cannot cope with what is occurring and so he oscillates between the two states of being in the hopes that one of them will be the correct response. They are not, but you let him go at it until he works out what is going on in that amazing mind of his. And he responds with sallies of his own; one night you enter the tent far later than usual to discover him lying there shirtless, eyes closed studiously in sleep. If he thought that would be enough to shock you, far from it. You snuggle into him, his front to your back, the way you usually wake up in the mornings. This time, his heart is fast enough for you to feel against your back, your own a dim echo of the ferocity of his. Another night, he is stripped down to underclothes. Another, he is awake, and remains steadfastly awake all night, blinking at you in the darkness. Eventually, you feign slumber yourself and roll into his arms as though sleeping restlessly. He holds you in the darkness like you might break if he touches you too hard.

But regardless of circumstance every night you curl against him, letting him feign sleep and use addled senses as an excuse to run his hands over your body. His fingers leave ice and flame in their wake, and you can't get used to the sensation, even in the daylight when you request a tool and your fingertips brush his. It is a slow death and sweet life all in one, and you can't help but feel deficient, that the only person to wake such dual irritation and affection in you is a vampiric genius with serious social issues. It's a shadow of what you feel for John, irritation and affection versus fury and love. You do love John, for all he infuriates you. And you love Nikola, for all you'd never tell him so.

He is something of a bastard but he is a great man for all of his personal peculiarities.

You think you might try an experiment.

One morning in November you wake as usual, feeling Nikola awake behind you, but for the first time you deliberately rock your hips backwards onto the hard flesh you can feel between you. He groans, a tiny muffled noise against the skin of your throat, his teeth scraping lightly at your skin. You are painfully aware you are in the arms of a vampire; as you tease him further he holds you so hard it feels like your ribs are creaking in protest. But you can't move and even if you wanted to, you wouldn't, as Nikola Tesla quietly comes undone behind you and you feel more power than you ever thought possible to feel without combusting. You are both fully clothed and somehow it doesn't matter, his clever hands pulling up your nightgown to touch you roughly through your undergarments. Your eyes roll back a little. The situation is both ridiculously juvenile and refreshingly beautiful, and you are distracted from your contemplation of your situation by the nip of Nikola's teeth in your shoulder. He is no longer quiet. His voice borders on a vampiric growl and his own smooth tenor, more heavily accented than usual. He says things you never thought to hear him say, and the worst part is that they are not salacious invitations or mere common filth, but soft things, sweet things. Words that make you feel as though someone has lit one, and then a whole bunch, of candles inside your chest.

He comes with a gasp of your name and it feels like something new, his hand busy between your legs even as he groans into your neck, hips bucking against you. And really, that' s all you need to come, the sensation of him losing control behind you and because of you. You.

You drift off back to sleep after that and when you wake again, the sun is high in the sky and Nikola is gone. You manage to dress and emerge blinking into the light, seeing Nikola almost immediately tinkering with something in the sand. At lunch he sits away from you and he can't look you in the eye. Nikola without his pride is a fearsome thing. And really, you'd be terrified as to what the future would hold for the two of you, if not for a messenger running into camp shouting that Howard Carter has found the tomb of Tutankhamen.

"Carter! The fucking bastard!" Nikola swears and curses and sulks like a child, but eventually you both have to face that you were wrong. That after five years you have naught to show for it but the memories and an enormous financial loss. The money doesn't concern you, really. Nikola, however, is beside himself.

You quietly pack the site up and head to Cairo. Why not? Not much more to stay for here, and you really ought to be getting back to your Sanctuaries. Nikola follows like an abandoned puppy, trailing along behind you as you sort things out and conclude your business. The two of you stay in your usual rooms in the hotel at Cairo you've been frequenting for decades; dusty, faded lodgings with sand lurking in the corners and another terrible restaurant for Nikola to complain about.

"I can't believe he beat us to it!" he says for the ten thousandth time, sprawled on your bed as you attend to business at your desk. The window is open and white gossamer curtains blow softly in the breeze, giving you a splendid view of this city you have come to love so dearly. You've been in and out of Cairo for the last five years - or more. You're going to miss it.

"These things happen," you reply to Nikola, and he scoffs.

"I know that, Helen," he says, over pronouncing your name with usual insouciance. "They just don't happen to _me_."

You grin. Arrogant bastard. Neither of you have spoken of what happened in camp on the day Howard Carter found Tutankhamen, and to be honest you don't know why you even want to. Between the pair of you, you were stressed, worried, burdened, and suffering from an excess of immortality and sand in some very _uncomfortable_ places.

"Nikola," you begin. "About that night..." You're already calling yourself an idiot in your head. First all of, it was actually morning (the sun was up, for God's sake) and secondly, how more cliché can you get? "Nikola, you need to know - "

"Don't," he says at once. "Don't ruin it. Don't you dare tell me it was a mistake and we shouldn't have done it." You would argue except there isn't laughter in his face, not even a sneer. There's just that awful expression of nothingness, as though even though he's arguing with you about this he still expected it. You've seen it before, when you announced bubbling with joy your engagement to John and Nikola had smiled a hideous smile pulled up from the darkest depths of his soul, in obvious excruciating pain and still congratulating you through the torment. You hadn't seen it then, you'd been too young. John might have, Nigel probably wouldn't have, and James certainly noticed. James noticed everything. That expression, cropping up all over your shared history, and you want to scratch it from Nikola's impassive, ivory face.

You kiss it off instead.

He gasps against your lips and it's almost charming, his ineptitude. You've no doubt Nikola's kissed girls before, both before and after his change, but he's never kissed you and his self-doubt is evident in his fluttering hands, at your waist, at your shoulders. As though there's too many places he wants to touch her and he's going to try to touch as many as possible before he has to stop.

You're not going to stop. Not now.

You strip yourself of all your painful layers - you were too hot, anyway - and push him down on the bed, crawling on top of him. His eyes are enormous, his chest heaving, and he looks painfully young. Something twinges at your heart; you can't help but wonder how long he's been in love with you. And then his hands are working doggedly at your laces, freeing your skin from the corset's oppression, and you lose all attempts at rational though as he cups your breasts in his hands.

Those hands. They have invented the most amazing marvels, created the wildest imaginings of Nikola's mind. They were the hands that injected the Source blood into you so long ago, the fingers you grabbed as the liquid rushed through your body, transforming you, recreating you. They shake now.

The light outside is dimming and you roll, pulling him on top of you. "Helen," he breathes, a prayer on your skin, his eyes vampire dark and just the bare beginnings of fangs peeking down from behind his lips. And you forget the rest of the world.

Later, the darkness sweeps over the city like a cloak and you lie curled into his side yet again. This time, though, you are both naked and sleeping on an exquisitely comfortable bed rather than lying in a tent. You lean away from him, lighting candles around the room. Nikola smiles lazily at you, nude in your bed like a demigod carved from living stone. You can feel his claw marks on your shoulders, already healing, and the bite marks he's left on your skin. They're not so deep, though. He was careful not to hurt you too badly.

And what now? You have no idea. In all honesty, you probably shouldn't have done this. You have forever altered your working relationship with him, not to mention your friendship. Damage control is in order, and you return to the bed without bothering with clothes, letting your sweat-slicked body rest against Nikola's dry, cool one. Apparently vampires don't sweat. Fascinating.

You rest your head against his chest and listen for the last time to his thundering heart. You turn your face up to his.

"Helen - "

"I need to get back to my work," you interrupt, and something closes in his face. That brightness, the warmth making his eyes as clear and calm as they'd been before the Source blood, dims away to almost nothing. And it's true; you do need to get back to your work. But more than that you need to get away from him, away from his needs and his desires and the way if you stay with him, it will end in disaster. He will tear at you and you will tear at him and any friendship will fall by the wayside of ruined hearts and two powerful abnormals at loggerheads. You can't afford the distraction but now, watching his thin face twitch with the desire to speak the words that will change your mind, you can't help but comfort him.

"We can still see each other," you whisper, and he turns over. You wrap your naked body against his, spooning him, as though you can drape yourself over him and protect him from all harm. Funny that, really, considering he's far more indestructible that you.

"Oh, yes," he replies, only the faintest burr of an accent lurking on the sharp words as he pulls away from you, sheets pooling at his waist as he sits up in bed. "See each other and say what? Hello, dear, how are you? Fucked anyone lately?"

You wince. You wish he wouldn't use such words. Although God knows you've used them often enough, but in his silky voice they sound far worse than obscenities. "No, not like that," you protest, but it's weak and you know it. And he knows it.

"Of course," he replies scornfully. "God forbid the great Helen Magnus lower herself to such - "

"Shut up, Nikola!" you blurt out and to your surprise, he actually does. "Why do you have to - I don't know - why can't you just - " You are speechless and any other time he would be gloating cheerfully at rendering you so, but this time he stays very still and silent, and watches you with those fathomless eyes.

"We'll pretend," he says softly after a long time has passed and you are calm again. You had not cried, but that doesn't mean you didn't want to. You grasp at his suggestion, cling to it, a lifeline thrown to you by a man who is not as bad as he would like to be.

"Pretend?"

"That we had a jolly old time searching for Tut's tomb and nothing happened between us beyond wandering about in the sand." You can't speak, held by his eyes and his words. "And one day I'll remind you of what fun we had and you'll know, Helen, you'll know that it's time for you to admit there's something between us." You don't speak, and his hand clenches down on yours, hard. "Agreed?" he asks, breath in your face, the scent of time and vampire clouding your senses.

"Yes," you breathe. "Yes, Nikola. Of course. Yes." And he relaxes under your hands, his whole body unclenching and unwinding to lie without tension against you. It's strange how self-possessed he can be, completely naked in front of you and without shame. You envy it, just a little.

What else is there to say? The two of you are creatures of action, and for all Nikola has too many words and you can command their use when necessary, there is little more to be discussed. But for now, there is him, and you, and time left to embed every inch of him into your memory against the years and the possibility that this may never occur again.

"Nikola," you murmur, and he turns into your embrace, just a little, his cool breath against your throat. It is not a surrender and not an agreement, but a cease-fire for the moment, as though he will savour your presence now and rail against you when you are gone. And you? You need to sleep.

You are very tired, and you have a feeling the road ahead will be long.


End file.
